Out of respect for Nathan Deen, this review will not be the utter evisceration that I want it to be, and Nathan Deen is a man who deserves respect. As a young child, he saw his father shoot his mother, then himself, and was thereafter sent to an orphanage and to multiple foster homes. Brave The Dark, which is based on his life, begins at a point at which he is living out of his car and using his spot on the track team to gain access to a shower.
When Nate (Nicholas Hamilton) is arrested—in the middle of the school day, in full view of his classmates—for breaking into an appliance store, the one person who shows any concern for him at all is Stan Deen (Jared Harris), an English teacher beloved by his community. When the rest of the school staff turn their backs, Stan arranges for Nate’s grandparents to transfer custody and takes the young man into his home, determined to help him make something of his life.
It’s an awe-inspiring story. But it’s just a very bad movie.
The script is the work of the real-life Nathan Deen who writes about his experience as a photographer, broadcast and film producer, and film director. With all due respect, Mr. Deen, the one thing it’s clear you have not been before is a writer. The dialogue reeks of fakeness. One character calls Nate a “wasteoid,” as if to prove that he is a teenager in 1986. Nate calls Mr. Deen by his first name well before the two of them have built a close enough relationship for that. After a blowout with his mentor, Nate goes to a party and natters on about his guilt to a random girl on a couch—you know, the way one does when one is a troubled teen who’s spent his entire life lying to other people about his circumstances. (This seems like a good moment to warn that flashing lights are briefly used in this movie; Angel Studios, who made this movie, don’t seem to have bothered to add a note about that.)
The real problem with Brave the Dark, though, is not what people say but how they say it—which is with an absolute lack of luster. I could have believed a line like “I’m cursed, everyone’s against me” (Nate’s complaint after a bad first day back at school following his arrest), or “Nathan, just stay the hell away from my daughter, okay?” (as the father of Nate’s ex says when he won’t leave her alone)—-if they had been delivered any other way than they were, with a bare minimum of conviction or feeling. Throughout the film, Nicholas Hamilton’s voice stays flatter than the state we live in, rarely reaching above medium volume; he tells the story of his life’s greatest trauma like he’s explaining a math problem. It’s not just him, either. In scene after scene, actors trade lines like they’re simply taking turns speaking, and when they do, it’s bland and uninspiring. For that reason, the dark turn the film takes near its end, in which Nate attempts suicide and tells the story of his mother’s death, becomes jarring instead of captivating.
This isn’t so much a movie as an ad for the Stan Deen Foundation, which, in real life, Nate created in his mentor’s honor. In fact, the real Nate shows up in a clip that comes after the movie ends, asking audience members to buy tickets to it for other people, with the help of a QR code at his side.
I said this wouldn’t be an utter evisceration, so it won’t be. No matter how dry the portrayal of him, it’s hard to look away from Nate’s journey, and when Stan finally gets fed up with him, it’s a moment worth watching. For that matter, Jared Harris does a perfectly good job as Mr. Deen: kind-voiced and jovial, able to mouth along with a living Shakespeare record and impersonate Santa Claus. And there are a couple entertaining moments: Stan fakes a heart attack while chasing after Nate in order to get him to stop; Nate changes his mind about helping with the school play as soon as he finds out his ex-girlfriend is in it. But if you want to enjoy those moments, don’t watch this movie—watch its trailer, which contains them both. It, at least, won’t require you to buy a sixteen-dollar ticket.
